<![CDATA[This article examines the Sirompak ritual within Minangkabau culture through an archive-based essay film practice. Rather than verifying the ritual as a cultural tradition, the study approaches Sirompak as a cultural narrative situated between the legitimization of tradition and unresolved experiences of trauma. The film does not produce new footage; instead, it reconfigures existing visual and audio archives through layering, fragmentation, and sound composition. This strategy positions the essay film as a mode of visual thinking that interrogates how ritual is produced, represented, and displayed within contemporary visual culture. The analysis focuses on three key aspects: ritual as visual interpretation, the female body as a site of myth-making, and ritual within the logic of spectacle. The findings suggest that the essay film does not resolve the meaning of ritual but sustains the tension between tradition and trauma as a critical strategy. In this sense, the essay film functions as an artistic practice that opens an ideological space for negotiating the representation of ritual.]]>
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